


Some hearts have a map, but some need to roam

by Stardust_and_Strawberries



Category: Every Heart a Doorway - Seanan McGuire
Genre: Body Horror, Body Shaming, Canon Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Gen, Magic, Misgendering, Supernatural Elements, Transphobia, fat phobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2018-08-08 03:24:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7741552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stardust_and_Strawberries/pseuds/Stardust_and_Strawberries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year after Jill's murderous rampage and Nancy's disappearance everything seems calm at the school, but both events have left a profound impression on the student body, desperately longing for home, and on Eleanor herself, shaken by her perceived failure to protect her students. Two new students arrive in this unsettled time: Forest, who has almost forgotten what it feels like to be human and isn't sure she wants to remember, and Sachi, who was only away for three weeks in Earth time but learned enough for several lifetimes. Meanwhile Kade is struggling to adjust to the extra responsibility and Christopher is shocked to discover that someone may be able to rival the Skeleton Girl in his affections. </p><p>The reappearance of a face from the past brings these tensions to boiling point, now that the knowledge of how to make a Skeleton Key is out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She ran her finger nervously around the itchy, constricting collar of her shirt and tried to calm herself by focussing on her breathing, but that made things worse. She became even more aware of the alien, unnatural scents rising off the car's upholstery and plastic assaulting her nose, violating her lungs, of the way the air in this hot metal box was sealed away from everything fresh and green and good, trapped as much as she was. Her heartbeat accelerated, her breath came faster and faster as she watched the trees flash past the window, seeming as distant and inaccessible as home.

She needed to focus, not to panic again. Casting around desperately for something to anchor her to reality, not this strange barren world of lines and angles and lifeless objects, she focussed at last on the living dirt under her fingernails, grounding herself with the flow of life between the countless tiny beings living among the soil particles there. 

She could do this. They had told her there were trees around the school, and that at least would be better. She just had to make it through the journey.

***

Eleanor watched the taxi's slow approach along the drive. "That will be Forest arriving I think." she said, checking a time written in her diary next to a name that was not the girl's own. "The Corn King forgive me for the things I had to say about that poor child to get her."

"It's you who needs to forgive yourself Auntie." said Kade, gently squeezing her hand with his own. "You said what you had to to rescue her."

Eleanor smiled at him, lines that hadn't been there six months ago crinkling around her eyes. She wanted to tell him that he was a good boy, that without him she didn't know how she would have gotten through this last year. Not so much its strange events - she had seen far stranger in her time - but her loss of faith in herself, in her ability to protect her charges, how it was only his faith in her that had seen her through now that her own was gone. Instead she said: "Let's go down and welcome her then."

Before the taxi had fully pulled to a stop Forest was scrabbling at the door handle, her pointed nails scouring ruts in the plastic of the door. Horrified at her frantic scratching the driver unlocked the door, regretting his agreement to deliver a mad child to an asylum, screw the generous fare. She tumbled out onto the drive, not noticing her grazed knees in her hurry to reach the lawn beside it. The taxi driver continued to what he considered a safe distance before stopping to shut the door and throw her suitcase out of the trunk, then accelerated away at top speed as she stuffed handfuls of grass and dirt into her mouth like a starving person at a banquet.

When she was finally sated she looked up, to find a young man and an elderly woman watching her. Everything she remembered from Before told her that they should be horrified at her behaviour, that she should be embarrassed, but their expressions were sympathetic and she could smell no fear or disgust on them. The woman smiled and walked towards her, crouched stiffly in front ofher with the aid of her companion and her stick.

"Hello, my name is Eleanor and this is Kade. Welcome, you must be Forest I think?"

"Forest." said the girl, and her voice was full of a longing that Eleanor recognised so well.

"Would you like to come inside with us? Kade will bring your things. You can spend as much time out here as you like, you can even sleep outside if you want, but it would be easier if you had your own room to store anything you might want to keep. Would you like to come with us and see it?"

Forest considered. She didn't want to go indoors so soon after escaping the car but she had also learned that things would be easier for her if she obeyed, and the building didn't smell as bad and lifeless as she had feared. She made up her mind.

"I will come."

"Excellent! This way please!" The woman led the way, the young man beside her carrying what Forest noted with surprise was the box her family had filled with objects and garments when they told her she was going away again. She had forgotten that they had sent it with her. She followed them through corridors alive with smells and colours, pausing to touch with wonder the vessels they passed that had once held life: the wooden panels, the sea shell mosaic, the dried flowers. There were so many new things to experience all at once that she struggled to concentrate on what the woman was saying. "...at six but if you're hungry before that just ask in the kitchen. Once the other new girl arrives Christopher will fetch you for your induction. Here we are now, is this good?"

Forest barely glanced at the shady room, transfixed instead by the ancient elm tree visible through the window. She clasped her hands in front of her face, letting out a cry of joy that sounded as though it should have come from a much younger girl, and raced to it. "Good!" she said, not turning away from the beautiful tree, and then remembering that something more was required of her added "Thank you!" 

Kade and Eleanor waited a few moments as Forest remained at the window with her back to the room, but when it became clear she didn't need anything more from them Kade carefully put her suitcase down on the bed and they left. Forest listened to their footsteps recede, through the doorway, along the corridor and down the stairs. When she was quite certain that they weren't coming back she leapt into the tree's branches and pressed her forehead against its rough bark, listening to the stories it told.

Time passed, the world turned, the flow of sap slowed as the light became lazy and golden. Forest dimly remembered that something had been said to her about things occurring at particular hours, but did not think these things concerned her. As the horizon rose to meet the sun she thanked the tree and let herself fall to the ground, revelling in the rich earthy scents in the cooling air. This place didn't seem so bad after all, she thought, heading for a nearby copse, and was certainly better than the last one. Even the humans seemed friendly. Maybe she would make an effort to talk to them this time, try to use their limited words to begin to tell them about the wonder that was The Forest.

She could smell one of them nearby now.

Cautiously she stalked it, creeping upwind so it would not be aware of her until she was ready. It was confusing this one, it smelled bad, of burning and of the poisons they had tried to give her in the hospital, but it also smelled good, of night air and open spaces and fresh meat. It seemed unthreatening though, huddled and small, maybe even small enough to eat. It was making a whimpering sound.

"Hello." said Forest uncertainly, standing up.

"They burned her." gasped Jack, choking down a sob. "They b-burned her so I couldn't b-bring her back and I d-don't know if I might be relieved!"


	2. Chapter 2

Cora ran at night.

  
It wasn’t swimming. She had to strap her knees and ankles (because deep down in the core of her, her body knew that its joints weren’t supposed to pound against the unyielding ground but to flex sinuously with the currents) and she wasn’t brave enough to do it in the daylight, when the other students would see and judge the fat girl running. But it felt so good to move again, to feel the fluid rhythm of her muscles carrying her forward across a now-familiar landscape, even if it was forested with oak and sycamore rather than kelp.

  
She had run with a headtorch at first, but had quickly realised that eyes adapted to the darkness of the ocean depths didn’t need an extra light source. Sometimes the patterns of moonlight scattered on the forest floor by the tree canopies reminded her of the dappled beams of blue refracted by the waves.  
It wasn’t swimming but it was close.

  
In a clearing not far from where Cora’s confident stride was propelling her through the night, Forest contemplated the small human beside her. Although she couldn’t smell any injuries or sickness on it, it was clearly badly wounded somehow and in a lot of distress. For a moment she considered eating it to end its suffering and let its substance flow back into the Great Web to join the Dance of Life in another form. Then she remembered from Before that humans didn’t work like that, that although they were part of the Dance they were all complex enough to be unique, each one almost an entire Web in one body, and to consume one would be like destroying the Web itself.

  
The idea of the Web being entirely destroyed made Forest feel as distressed as the human seemed to be, and reminded her she was back in this awful world where humans were assaulting the Web, were trying so hard to to separate themselves and separate her from it. But she couldn’t allow herself to fall into despair now, she needed to work out what to do about this human, this (she reminded herself) person, if only to get the horrible noise it was making to stop. She filled her lungs with the night air, rich and full with tree scents, felt the flow of nutrients and messages through the secret fungal networks in the cool dark Earth, and calmed herself. She still had no idea what to do, but reminded herself that the Dance would continue as it should without the Dancers needing to know how, and that all things would ultimately return to the web.

  
The Web cycled as it should. Forest was relieved to hear another human’s footfalls approaching, though for a moment she worried it was chasing something or being chased. But no, she caught its scent on the breeze and there was no fear or hunger there, just the smell of vitality and joyful exertion. Even though this was mingled with the odour of the synthetic cleaning products they liked to use to stop themselves smelling like themselves, this one smelled like someone Forest could trust.

  
“Here!” she called. The human’s steps slowed. Forest considered her options.

  
“Help?” she called hesitantly, and was relieved to discover that this caused the human to come towards them. “Help.” she said again, more confidently, and gestured towards the crumpled human next to her.

  
“Oh shit, did you two come through the pond too?” Cora groaned, and when Forest couldn’t work out how to reply she shifted her attention to Jack. “Are you hurt?”

  
Jack flinched away as she extended a hand. “Please, please don’t touch me. I can’t deal with that right now.”

  
“Oookay then.” said Cora. She turned to face Forest, who she now noticed was rather hairier than your average human and had rather sharper teeth. “Are _you_ hurt?”

  
Forest considered the question for a long moment. “The separation, it hurts.” she concluded.

  
“Is Nancy around? Or Kade?” asked Jack.

  
“Nancy was the girl who found her door last year wasn’t she, after all the murders?” Cora took a deep breath. “Okay, I think we’d better find Eleanor.”


End file.
